I have been contemplating some of the complications of The space marine specialization and ranking system with regards to the contradictions that crop up when compared to canon. I completely understand the need to differentiate characters adequately but I wonder if I may have thought of a suitable alternative to the system that is currently in place while maintaining the checks and balances that are made with the system as it currently stands.

This is, of course, not a fully formed and formulated system as yet. I would, however, appreciate some feedback and perhaps alternatives to the proposed changes I will describe below.

We all understand how the system currently stands, where some talents are the province of one specialization only. The major caveat being that a player siting the right circumstances could request an elite advance to supplement the ranking system that is already established. My alternative concept is quite simple really, the specialization ranking system remains unchanged giving the specializations the same access to talents and skills that they would normally be privy to. The Deathwatch advances would likewise be unchanged but the general advances would have all the advances that relate to combat training and skills, outside of forbidden lores and psychic abilities (for obvious reasons), at one rank higher than the specialty and at a cost multiplied by 1.5 of the specialty cost for normal marines and 1.75 for Librarians due to the exclusive access to above mentioned lores and psychic abilities.

The consequences of this change is pretty dramatic but I think it makes the game and the canon a little more consistant. It also makes the specialized characters better at their particular role simply because the rank 8 abilities will still set them apart and the more efficient use of experience in those skills means that choices taken outside of the specialization would have to be made with careful thought. Obviously there are some conflicts in the implementation of this system as the abilities of swift attack for example would be available to a librarian would be available earlier due to it being a rank 1 ability for the assault specialization. Any librarian would have to carefully way the extra cost of buying that ability though because it may hurt them in the long run. In the end I suppose that the system would work itself out just by the simple virtue of economics. You might, however, have a particularly munchkin player who ends up with very little experience and very few skills...

First, I will admit that I have spent woefully little time with the core book. However, I am inclined to agree that space marines should be highly cross trained. Because all DW marines of the normal specialities (Devastator, Assault, Tactical) have spent years, if not decades filling each of these roles, I would allow any of them to take skills from each other's trees as an elite advance for an extra 100. My first instinct was 50 as that is what DH would lean to for automatic elite advances, but the scale of DW makes me think 100 is more appropriate. As for techmarines, librarians, and appothocaries I would not allow them automatic access to elite advances and they would have to petition and bid for them like any other character.

I have joined Assault, Devastator and Tactical advancement lists into one big and called it Veteran. Funny thing, it makes player less specialised and bit weaker.

One big change, some higher ranked talents need other talents as prequisites.

Well the interesting thing about the way I set it up is that at rank 8 you will only have access to your own specialty or general advances at rank 7, this way the specialists still get their ultimate abilities and some distinction. Not to mention the fact that a techmarine who wishes to be particularly effective with ranged weapons for example would have to pay a great deal of experience to do so. While that techmarine may one day be incredibly powerful due to his specialized options that no other marine will be privy to... he has to survive and spend copious amounts of experience to do it. On the other hand an assault marine will have all that xp that he didn't have to spend for things like characteristic advances and maybe general advances from the tactical marine’s field of expertise which he will get with less difficulty than the more specialized characters. What would end up happening is your assault, tactical and devastator marines would be well rounded with various options available in most scenarios while Techmarines Apothecaries’ and Librarians would be incredibly powerful within very specific ways that would only be viable in a few situations. That’s the kind of trade off I want my players to look at when they generate their characters.